Sex Galaxy Trailer…

I hope this is real!

¡Viva! Film Festival Review – Part 2: The Night of the Sunflowers (2006) and El Aura (2005)

Two more film reviews from the ¡Viva! Film Festival:

The Night of the Sunflowers, aka. La Noche de los girasoles (written and directed by Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo 2006)

The Night of the Sunflowers wastes no time in lighting the fuse of this multi-narrative noir-bomb and rolling it under the seat of this unsuspecting viewer. The catalyst is a particularly callous attempted rape and murder from which the rest of the events rapidly snowball. A new cave has been discovered just outside a dwindling small rural Spanish village, which if is found to be expansive might revitalize the community to the world of tourism.

Two experienced cavers, Esteban (Carmelo Gómez) and his photographer, are brought in to investigate, but while they are exploring the subterranean realms, which turn out to be a dead-end, Esteban’s girlfriend is attacked by a travelling salesman/serial killer. The film continues to explore the consequences of this violent attack from the perspectives of six different characters, including two old men who spend their days squabbling, a jaded adulterous cop and his father-in-law, who is also a cop on the cusp of retirement. Needless to say the fallout of the attack escalates as Esteban’s attempted revenge upon who he expects is his girlfriend’s assailant turns out to be misdirected.

Multi-character narratives telling the same story from different perspectives tend to be repetitive affairs and occasionally confusing with much jumping back and forth; however The Night of the Sunflowers tells the story in a fairly strict chronological narrative and rarely goes over old ground. Due to the nature of the film, I am loathed to give away any more spoilers than necessary so I will stop here, but for those looking for simple closure and all the loose ends neatly tied up then I would advise you look elsewhere. Possibly this story feels a little pointless, being little more than a quick glance through the window of some ordinary people thrown into an extraordinary situation, but still this is an intriguing, beautifully shot and intelligent film by yet another excellent début director in the ¡Viva! Festival’s line-up.

El Aura, aka. The Aura (written & directed by Fabián Bielinsky 2005)

Definitely the film of the festival in my humble opinion. El Aura is one of the finest films I have ever seen at the cinema and will certainly be making its way into my DVD collection ASAP! The sad thing is: this is director Fabián Bielinsky’s second and last film as he died last summer.

Shot beautifully in a muted natural pallet in full fat-assed cinemascope El Aura simply does everything right. Never flashy or trying to impress, instead El Aura just does impress. Somehow it reminded me of The Godfather. Not as flashy as say Apocalypse Now but still utterly perfect.

The film tells of Esteban Espinosa (Richardo Darín), an epileptic taxidermist with a brilliant memory, who harbors a fantasy to pull off the perfect robbery. Again I am loathed to spoil the film, but while on a hunting trip in the Patagonian woodlands Espinosa has a tragic accident that leads him to a plot to rob the local casino’s bank holiday taking and the dark world of Argentina’s underworld. As you can imagine events soon spiral out of Espinosa’s control and he finds that conducting the perfect heist is not quite as easy as he first thought.

Richardo Darín deserves special mention in his superb performance as the introverted taxidermist: his dark-eyed hangdog expression strangely reminding me of Ray Romano (Ray Barone) from Everybody Loves Raymond, but a Ray Romano suffering from a particularly nasty bout of smack withdrawal symptoms.

But it is the direction and plotting that really make this film. Fabián Bielinsky’s direction is simply outstanding. Cleverly using the gloomy forest shades and cinemascope to produce a feeling of a fish out of water or should that be a man out of his depth? Either way it’s brilliant. The hunting scene is particularly memorable, and the revolving camera work and distorted sound design during Espinosa’s fits sent a shiver up my spine.

Like a lot of noir thrillers, perhaps El Aura relies a little heavily on a few too many coincidental meetings and a slight suspension of disbelief; however I cannot recommend this film enough. Go out and see it or snap it up on DVD. You will not be disappointed. As for myself, I will be checking out Fabián Bielinsky’s first film, the much lorded Nine Queens to maintaining my fix while waiting for the DVD of El Aura.

¡Viva! Film Festival Review – Part 1: El Violin (2006) and Madeinusa (2005)

Strangely enough the thematic order that I have grouped these films in is in the same order I saw the films. I can not see how the ¡Viva! festival organizers could have arranged this as some of the viewings were loosely scattered across the week’s line-up, so maybe my categorising has been slightly influenced by the order I watched them in. Anyway, despite my happenstance subliminal suggestibility it is my order and I am going to stick with it and although some of the thematic links between these films is speculative, I consider that these first two contain many similarities in their narrative structures, concepts, audio-visual style and backgrounds. Both films develop the story predominately from the perspective of an outsider trying to do the right thing against a potential hostile and seemingly stupid community. Both stories have music, roots and community at their hearts. Both are set in a rural location. Both films document the inequality and brutality of their respective nations. Both films have an authentic feel, using non-actors and simple no thrills directorial techniques. Both films look beautiful. Both films unravel their relatively linear and simple stories thread by thread; and both stories have stings in their tails.

I consider both these films to be cinematic folk tales…

El Violin (writen and directed by Francesico Vargas, Mexico 2006)

This film opens in harrowing fashion: a brutal interrogation and rape of a village. Shot in stark black and white El Violin’s opening hits you like a brick in your face. Actually this is untypical of the rest of the film which is by and large more subtle, with much of the violence implied rather than shown. Still this opening leaves you in no doubt that the risks involved by the revolutionary campos village community in the 1970s against the brutal military.

Don Plutarco (Don Ángel Tavira), his son (Gerardo Taracena) and his grandson (Mario Garibaldi), a musical family, become involved in a guerilla war as the military aggressively lay siege to their simple village. Don Plutarco’s son becomes involved in the guerilla’s attempt to release the capture villagers and ammunition that has been abandoned in haste by the surprised fleeing villagers, but the wily old Don conjures up a subtler way to liberate the hidden stash of ammo. Selling his future harvest for a mule he makes his way into the occupied village and via his fiddle the one handed violinist starts winning the trust of the oppressive comandante (Dagoberto Gama), a bully and a buffoon, who harbours a secret love for music. Holding the Don Plutarco’s violin to ransom the comandante forces the violinist to return every day to teach him how to play. In exchange the comandante allows the Don to tend his crops which is coincidentally where the hidden ammo is…

*SPOILER* Obviously something has got to give and it eventually becomes clear that the comandante is not quite the buffoon that Don Plutarco takes him for. If you are looking for a happy end then look else where as Don Plutarco’s mistake costs him dearly, although writer/director Vargas does offer his audience a glimmer of hope for the future.

Unlike many modern films shot in black and white, El Violin does not have that super polished monochrome look of the soulless Angel-A. Instead it is high contrast and grainy. I have no idea of the vintage of Vargas’ equipment but I am guessing that it is older rather than newer – and the results are testament to its fine application. Vargas’ début feature is a simple story, told simply. That is to say it is told extremely well. Perhaps it is not the most ambitious film you will ever see, but it will certainly be one of the finest. The non-actor Don Ángel Tarira’s début performance is also fantastic as the loveable, sleigh old goat.

Madeinusa (written & directed by Claudia Llosa, Peru 2005)

Madeinusa has a brilliant premise that positively oozes potential. It is kind of a surreal Latin American twist on a typical western scenario, with more than a sprinkling of Wicker Man-esque mysticism.

Basically Salvador (Carlos J. de la Torre), a young man, gets stranded in a remote Peruvian town who are preparing for a bizarre Easter festival, where for the duration of Christ’s death, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, the population is free to partake in any sin, fun and frolics from the prying eyes of God. While Salvador manages to escape the simple makeshift prison that the guilty villagers try to impose on him for the duration of the festival, he does not manage to escape the attentions of Madeinusa (Magaly Solier), the attractive daughter of the corrupt and incestuous major who plans to take his daughter’s virginity during the absolute freedom of the festival. Madeinusa sees a means to escape the cheery but oppressive rural community in the hansom stranger and sets out to seduce him with her beautiful voice, but the bemused Salvador is not the knight in shining amour she thinks he is. Unsurprisingly Madeinusa’s father is less than happy to find out that his daughter has just given away the object of his desires.

Despite having all the right ingredients, all seemingly coming to the boil in a tightly packed pressure cooker situation, I feel that writer/director Llosa slightly takes his foot off the gas (apologies for all the mixed metaphors) allowing events to drift along without quite the tension which the premise seems to suggest. However despite this the sleepy realism of Madeinusa is beguiling and the end is surprising wicked!

*SPOILERS* Reluctantly Salvador decides that he can not leave Madeinusa behind with her lecherous father and vengeful sister; however Madeinusa can not leave without her mother’s earrings. Discovering that her drunken comatosed father has crushed them she sees red and pours rat poison soup down his sleeping throat then watches him die. Salvador returns to see what is keeping Madeinusa, only to discover the scene of the crime and to realize that the sweet girl is possibly a bit more unhinged than she at first seemed. Unfortunately for Salvador he finds that blood runs thicker than murder as both Madeinusa and her jealous sister bury the hatchet and frame him for the murder of their father. Salvador, like Don Plutarco in El Violin and Sargent Howie (Edward Woodward) in The Wicker Man, finds that his underestimation of what he perceives as simple caricatures leads to his ultimate downfall.

Like El Violin, Madeinusa uses a predominately non-professional cast with brilliant results. Also like El Violin, Madeinusa does all the simple things right. It simply tells its story. Visually it is stunning, with beautiful cinematography. While El Violin uses a black and white pallet to enhance the brutality and realism, Madeinusa uses rich natural colours to enhance a feeling of otherworldliness and exoticness. Madeinusa is less linear than El Violin and conceptually much stronger; however it never quite reaches the heights it promises, while El Violin delivers it all in a tight little package. Still, like Salvador, Madeinusa charmed me with its innocence and weirdness. While Madeinusa drifts a little wayward in places it is a unique little gem of a film with a bitter-sweet sting in its tail, so watch out for virgins in strange towns!

EDIT: At the moment neither of these films are widely available on R2 DVD, indeed El Violin doesn’t seem available at all at the moment; however Madeinusa is available in Spain. I’ll try to update this as/if they become available.

¡Viva!: the 13th Spanish & Latin American Film Festival @ Cornerhouse, Manchester (2007)

Well better late than never, here are my thoughts on ¡Viva!: the Spanish & Latin American Film Festival in Manchester (15th-25th March 2007).

In a word: fantastic! Never have I seen so many brilliant films in a row at the cinema. Out of the eight films I attended, seven were the dog’s bollocks! Only one was a stinker! To say that I came away with a favourable impression of Latin American film, and to a lesser extent Spanish film, is an understatement. The thing is that given the money, the time and the appropriate physiotherapy to recover from sitting in a cramped cinema seat for all those hours, I could easily have seen twice that amount of films, but I had to restrict myself. Fair play, I do not know how all those film critics can do it. Eight films in seven days nearly put me in traction.

I guess the success of Pan’s Labyrinth and City of Gods in recent years has really put Latin American film makers and Spanish films on the international map, but it is reassuring to know that there is a part of the world that still can make great films. American cinema is hideous at the moment; I have never been a fan of British movies and, despite the number of commercial successes, Asian is extremely limited unless you want wire-fu, sado-horror and/or techno-horror, and I am not too sure what is going on with French cinema these day.

Anyway the films… I am not too sure how to do this. I do not want to cover eight films in one post but equally I do not want to post eight individual post as I will never finish them by the time I forget it all. So I think I will try to group the films thematically, as follows, although this method might evolve into something else if it becomes clear that it is impractical or I become extremely lazy again:

* Part 1 – El modern folk tales el gringo: including the film El Violin and Madeinusa

* Part 2 – La Latin American noir: The Night of the Sunflowers and El Aura

* Part 3 -El schlocko gringo horror: ¿Quien puede matar a un nino? And Pura sangre

* Part 4 – La full on weirdo: Alucarda and The Holy Mountain

[EDIT: Due to laziness on my part, parts 3 & 4 never got written and are unlikely to ever be so. I do however now own ¿Quien puede matar a un nino?  and The Holy Mountain on DVD and will one day get Alucarda, so one day I might post reviews on these fine films - possibly combining them with some thoughts of what I can remember from the others, but don't hold your breath.]

Sorry for the category names, but they will have to do for now. I might add some thoughts on The Devil’s Backbone, Cronos and The Day of the Beast in my El schlocko gringo horror post as although I did not see these films at the festival, I do own them all on DVD, so I might as well cheat a bit. I’ll also rummage around the internet for some vivid pictures as all of these films are visually stunning. Did I say all? What I meant to say is all except Pura sangre which sucked ass.

Part 1 will be up either tonight or tomorrow. If any one is famillar with any of these films or the Viva festival in general then feel free to add your two pence worth via a comment or two.

A word of warning: as most of these films are not widely available I shall be fairly liberal with my spoilers partly because it makes talking about them easier and partly because I want to get you wet, so look away if you want to stay bone-dry or do not want them ruined.

I.K.U. (Director: Shu Lea Cheang 2000)

I.K.U’s sub-heading: this is not love; this is sex – a Japanese sci-fi porn feature, and the scarlet DVD cover showing a sprawled, if clothed, cyber J-chick clutching a see-through plastic penis shaped gun, certainly gives the viewer a strong impression of what is to come (forgive the pun). The word Iku literally translates as orgasm in Japanese, as in ‘I’m coming’. However what do you really expect from sci-fi porn? I had little idea, no preconceptions and no past viewing experience to draw on. So what is it all about then?

Well the idea of I.K.U. is that the Genom Corporation has produced a breed of replicants who freely copulate with pretty much everyone they meet and record the orgasmic pleasure, which is later uploaded via the penis gun thing, providing the data for their virtual sex experience. The replicant in question is Reiko: a shape changing sex-bot, who goes from one sexual encounter to the next, gathering her sticky data in the name of progress and fun. Basically I.K.U. has a strong if not particularly original sci-fi concept at its heart. Unfortunately that is the total extent of the film’s plot and ambition. It fails to explore the social or moral consequences involved in this android sex industry. Nor does it explore the usual robotic sci-fi issues of slavery, what constitutes life and the artificial evolution of free will.

I.K.U. has many similarities with setting of Blade Runner and there are some obvious references to look out for, including: a silver origami unicorn and the “Do you love me?” “Do you trust me?” lines. Also, interestingly, there is two ending availably to watch, which may also be a homage to the two released versions of Blade Runner. However neither changes the nature of the film as the two versions of Blade Runner did. Indeed apart from the basic concept, there is little real similarities between the two films. Blade Runner gives the viewer an atmospheric, noir-ish dark future, with many moral grey areas. Instead I.K.U. gives you a non-stop kaleidoscope of hallucinatory erotic scenes.

Shu Lea Cheang uses every trick in the book, including: industrial noises, avant-garde electronica, cut-up editing, constantly moving cameras, CGI, vibrant lighting and shaky hand-held cameras, to produce a visual feast during every sex scene. Sometime it all becomes too much and it feels like an industrial-techno promo rather than a film in its own right. However fans of the Matrix and cyber-culture in general should be impressed by what they see. Occasionally the CGI looks a little dated and a bit basic, and some of the scenes work less well than others, feeling like bad 80s soft porn. The film has little staory or plot, with very little in the way of decipherable or meaningful dialogue. Indeed much of the incidental conversations sound like they were recorded underwater and slips from Japanese to English at random. And there lies the problem, there is really little else to I.K.U. than sex. However I can not see the hard-core porn audience being particularly impressed with what is on offer here. The sex scenes are generally simulated with only one real ‘money shots’ (and that is filmed through a fish tank!) and the highly intrusive arty camera work, editing and effects would really get in the way of practical functionality of pornography. The women are highly sexual, although certainly not classically good looking and the camera rarely stays still long enough for your average porn connoisseur to achieve unbuttoning their fly, let alone an erection! The soft-core and erotica audience will probably find the film too weird and not romantic enough to be a real turn on. Unfortunately I.K.U. is also far too explicit to really be considered art house cinema, which in turn will alienate almost everyone else. The sci-fi element is largely undeveloped and is predominately told through net-feed type text between bouts of humping, which will leave the sci-fi fans wanting more depth (oo-er!).

However maybe all this is missing the point? The film is an explicit, erotic, post-modern, colourful and a trippy visual sexy whirlwind, which is ultimately a little disappointing and unfulfilling (sounds familiar?), although worth watching as long as you are not offended by explicit and frequent sex and nudity. I.K.U. is not so much a porno nor a sci-fi film, but instead it would provide the psycho-sexual backdrop in that fictional cyberpunk nightclub, which you always wanted to go to, but unfortunately it only exists in the films. This really is as close as you are likely to get. It is hard to recommend I.K.U. as a must see film, as it really is not that good, however it is still somehow worth watching if you get the chance.